Affairs. Deal-breaker or not?

Kerri Sackville, our resident sex expert takes a closer look at the subject of monotony, monogamy and affairs.  She writes….

“Life is short. Have an affair.

So says the slogan for Ashley Madison, the dating agency aimed at ‘helping people who are bored in their primary relationship’. They provide a service, they say, for ‘when monogamy becomes monotony’. (Funny, I hadn’t realized those words were just three letters apart).

Wow. Well, that is a help, isn’t it. Up until now people wanting an affair had to go to the trouble of finding it themselves. And this wasn’t easy. They had to flirt with a potential partner (carefully, because, you know… they were married), suss out whether the other person was up for it (discreetly, because of that marriage thing again) and then go ahead and arrange a liaison. And what if the other person pulled out at the last minute (er, so to speak)? It was all a great deal of hassle and risk when all the poor dears wanted was an easy extra-marital bonk.

Or was it?

You see, this is what I don’t get about Ashley Madison. Not the fact that people are unfaithful; studies show that up to 60% of men and 40% of women are unfaithful during their relationships (though admittedly this is a difficult statistic to collect, I mean, you can’t exactly use it on the census). Infidelity, it can be argued, is just part of the human condition.

But what I don’t get about Ashley Madison is why anyone would want to use it. Who sets out to have an affair? Aren’t affairs the things that ‘just happen’? I mean, think about what people say about infidelity (people who’ve been caught out, anyway). “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” “I had too much to drink and we just ended up in bed.” “You and I hadn’t had sex in ages and she made a move and before I knew it…” “He looked at me and I felt alive again.”

To me, Ashley Maddison seems to miss the whole point of having an affair. Affairs come with enormous risk, so what drives people to take that risk? It’s the attraction that develops naturally and unexpectedly between two people, the excitement of desiring and of feeling desired again. People describe the delicious thrill of engaging in a illicit flirtation, of feeling sexual tension build between them and another, of feeling wanted again after a long period of marriage. This is what motivates them to risk marriage and family by engaging in an affair.

So what motivates them to pick up the phone to call a dating agency? The desire to feel the desire enough to take such risks? I don’t get it.

I don’t necessarily think that an affair has to be a deal breaker in a marriage. I know people who have admitted to, or been caught, cheating, and their primary relationship has managed to survive. But in all of these cases, the affair ‘just happened’. I think I could possibly forgive my husband for such an affair (though don’t tell him, because I don’t want my theory tested).

But if he went out and sought an affair? If he called an agency like Ashley Maddison to arrange some extra-marital sex? Not a chance.”

So what about you? Where do you stand on infidelity? And what do you think of the affair dating sites?

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